New Delhi: IIT Delhi organised an Academic Outreach Day for teachers and students of the Haryana government’s technical universities and colleges on Saturday at its Sonipat campus in the state.

Shri Anand M. Sharan, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary to Govt., Haryana Higher Education & Technical Education Department, was chief guest on this occasion.

The daylong programme, organised by the Institute’s Academic Outreach and New Initiatives office, was attended by over 300 students and teachers and it featured talks by IIT Delhi faculty and demonstration of research works (models and prototypes) by its researchers and start-ups.

Speaking about the Academic Outreach event, Shri Anand M. Sharan, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary to Govt., Haryana Higher Education & Technical Education Department, said, “This is the first Academic Outreach Day, which aims to inform you about the research facilities available here, so that you can inform your colleagues. The industry in the state can also utilise the facilities available here for their research works. The IIT Delhi Sonipat campus is growing and I am hopeful that in the future it would benefit the technical institutes as well as the industry in the state a lot.”

Prof Pritha Chandra, Associate Dean, Academic Outreach and New Initiatives, IIT Delhi, said, “As per an MoU between the state of Haryana and IIT Delhi, the latter has a mandate to mentor the state government’s technical colleges and universities. The Institute is committed to organising more such events where IIT Delhi faculty and students can engage with students and teachers in Haryana, and collectively contribute to the advancement of higher education in the state."

On this occasion, the IIT Delhi researchers showcased their works in the area of biomass pellet based clean combustion device, covid-19 rapid antigen kit, development of multimodal endoscope for early-stage oral cancer screening among others. Optica Student chapter also showed interesting demonstrations on 3D display, diffractive optics, etc.

The Sonipat Campus has some state-of-the-art facilities in the form of lecture rooms and conference halls. It also has a Central Research Facility (CRF) with some of the most advanced equipment for research in the sciences and the engineering disciplines. The participating students and teachers visited the CRF also.

Last year, IIT Delhi launched an online platform (https://crf.iitd.ac.in/) to enable the booking of the instruments available at the CRF in Sonipat as well the Institute’s main campus in New Delhi by the researchers within the Institute as well as outside. Both academic and industrial users enjoy the benefits of the sophisticated facilities housed here.

IIT Delhi is also establishing an atmospheric observatory on its Sonipat campus. The observatory will be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment such as radars, lidars, mass spectrometers, and a satellite ground station. By observing air pollutants, greenhouse gases, clouds, radiation and meteorology simultaneously, the facility will transform science-based action. The observatory will be open for researchers from across the country as well as international collaborators.

This first of its kind observatory in the heart of the Indo-Gangetic belt will enable researchers to make new discoveries and help find sustainable solutions to some of the country's pressing problems such as severe air pollution, erratic monsoon and extreme weather events associated with climate change.

During the Academic Outreach event, Prof. Rajesh Prasad from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, IIT Delhi delivered a keynote talk titled, ‘Titanic, Balloons and Paper: How things fail’ accompanied by demo.

The day long programme also witnessed five short lectures along with demos.

i) Novel Approaches in the Valorization of Agro-Residues  

Speakers: Prof. Hariprasad P. and Prof. Kavya Dashora (Centre for Rural Development and Technology, IIT Delhi)

ii) Challenges in Healthcare and Advances in Medical Technology 

Speakers: Prof. Ashok Patel, Kusuma School of Biological Sciences and Prof. Biswarup Mukherjee, Centre for Biomedical Engineering, IIT Delhi  

iii) Cutting-edge Challenges and Solutions in Clean Energy Transition 

Speakers: Prof. S.K. Tyagi, Dept. of Energy Sciences and Engineering, Prof. B.K. Panigrahi, Centre for Automotive Research and Tribology and Prof. Kaveri K. Iychettira, School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi  

iv) Air Pollution and Climate Change: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Speakers: Prof. Vikram Singh, Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Prof. Yama Dixit, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi  

v) Quantum Technologies with Single/ Entangled Photons & Single Atoms

Speakers: Prof. Joyee Ghosh and Prof. Bodhaditya Santra (Dept. of Physics, IIT Delhi)  

Prof. Ashok K Ganguli, Dy. Director Strategy & Planning and professor in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Delhi delivered the plenary lecture titled ‘Science and Technology for Equitable Progress’.

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